


Rise of the Mutants One-Shot #1: Longshot in Murderworld!

by KaiserKris



Series: Rise of the Mutants One-Shots [1]
Category: X-Men (Comicverse), X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: Cliffhangers, F/M, Gen, Reality TV
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-17
Updated: 2016-04-17
Packaged: 2018-06-02 21:15:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,719
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6582703
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KaiserKris/pseuds/KaiserKris
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You've been asking for it for ages! Well, one specific person has been. </p><p>It's Rise of the Mutants One-Shot #1! It features Longshot! He's in Murderworld! Arcade and Mojo are allies? That's not good.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rise of the Mutants One-Shot #1: Longshot in Murderworld!

**THIS TIME ON LONGSHOT!**

 

The dogs weren’t far behind.

 

The dogs were never far behind- and sooner or later, Longshot would have to deal with them somehow. He was pretty fast, but but they were faster and he was only really lucky when he was helping Rita or doing something else that was _good._ When it was just about his own survival, it was down to how fast he could move and how fast he could think. He looked around carefully.

 

He didn’t like the jungle so much- cities were more comfortable and easier to maneuver in, with doors and windows and roofs to go between. The downside of the cities, though, was that in cities, there tended to be innocent people and the last thing that Longshot ever wanted was to see innocent people get caught up in the hunt. He could handle the dogs, he had quick wits and sometimes really good luck and if things got really bad, extremely sharp knives.

 

But he’d seen what the dogs could do to people who couldn’t fight back. The dogs didn’t discriminate. To the dogs, people were just meat.

 

Still, he didn’t like to hurt the dogs, because he knew they were just animals deep down, following their instincts. The dogs didn’t hate him, not like their masters did, not like the Sugar Man or Arcade up in the control tower did. Longshot knew they were cruel and evil, and one day, he’d find those men and make them stop. But the dogs weren’t evil. They were just hungry and if he could outwit them or trap them without killing them, all the better.

 

But as the situation was, he was in a jungle and somewhere out there, he hoped, was Rita. The thought of finding her, of saving her, of taking her out of this horrible place one day, was what kept him going. _That’s why I have to be strong. That’s why I keep doing this and don’t give up like some of the other people did. I have to stay alive for her and for all the other people trapped in Murderworld._

 

Longshot also knew that if he stayed strong, fast and smart, that Mojo, who was the boss of both the Sugar Man and Arcade, who controlled the whole business, maybe even controlled the whole island- would keep him there. He had to play his part. He wasn’t paid for it, his only reward was another day of life, and the knowledge that no one else had to play the part. Other people weren’t always as lucky or fast as Longshot was. He’d seen what the dogs, or the other things the Sugar Man grew and Arcade threw at him did to them.

 

A flash of sudden inspiration hit him and he swung across a conveniently dangling vine over a patch of what looked like solid sand, but something was telling him wasn’t. _Quicksand. I know it, but the dogs might not._ He tested the ground on the opposite side carefully and continued on his way, briskly, but not at a flat run. It was important to be careful about how much energy he was using. He didn’t use as much fuel as a normal person did- but even so, he needed to have reserves in case they actually spotted him.

 

Longshot could hear the dogs now- they could smell him, surely, but they probably hadn’t seen him yet. Hopefully these dogs didn’t have wings. He _hated_ it when the dogs had wings. Once, too, the dogs had breathed fire and that’d been a little scary, though it hadn’t worked too well. He’d heard the viewers didn’t like it much and they’d quietly dropped it.

 

He continued going further into the jungle, until he came across what looked like an old building of some kind- maybe a bunker. He touched it tentatively, trying to see what he read from it and was immediately assaulted by images of raging flames, of screaming and dying men, terrible things that made him feel bad. _War._ That was the word. Sometimes he had trouble with words. He remembered Rita talking about how once, the island was in a big war where people from an island nearly halfway around the world occupied it and people from her country, even _further_ away, had come to free it. Which sounded like a very brave thing to do.

 

 _Americans._ Rita was an American and she came from a really big country that was really far away where people played baseball and drank a lot of Coca-Cola and chose the people who told them what to do. It sounded pretty nice, actually. Longshot liked Coca-Cola, it was fizzy and sweet, though if he had too much of it, he got a little hyper. Baseball sounded a little boring, to be honest, but at least nobody died playing it as far as he knew. And choosing your boss? Longshot couldn’t even imagine what that was like. Oh, and there were eagles. Lots of eagles.

 

Longshot wanted to see America one day. Maybe he could take Rita there. They could play baseball and drink Coca-Cola and choose their bosses and watch the eagles fly. And maybe he could join the American army and go around the world and help other people. Though it didn’t _seem_ helpful what they did here. Throwing grenades in a small building didn’t sound nice. And flamethrowers were even _worse._

 

Then he heard a muffled sound- _is Rita here?_ He knew she’d be somewhere around here, it was never too long between him seeing her and usually he had to save her from something- though once or twice, they had her save him for a change of pace. Something about playing to the female demographic, which he was pretty sure meant that girls liked seeing girls saving boys. Which made sense, though he was a boy and he liked it when anyone saved people.

 

He slipped into the bunker and this time he could smell the horrible burning flames, even though he knew it’d been a long time since that’d happened- longer than he’d been alive, longer than the Sugar Man or Arcade even had been alive. But not longer than Mojo. Mojo had been alive for a _very_ long time. He remembered hearing about that. And that Mojo had been banished from space and had to hide out here on Earth and that he was plotting to get back and make his TV shows in space again.

 

Longshot didn’t know how he felt about that. If he went back to space, maybe he’d leave the island alone, leave him and Rita alone and they could leave and go to America together. But then space people would have to worry about him and that hardly seemed fair to the space people. Maybe the space people wanted to go to America and drink Coca-Cola and play baseball too.

 

The bunker wasn’t much above ground, most of it was below ground- and indeed, it was a _lot_ bigger than he’d thought, really more of a base than a bunker and now the lights were on. Longshot reached out for his knives. If the lights were on, that meant somebody was home, and he doubted that he’d be able to just find Rita and get out of here. There was always something making it harder.

 

Longshot heard the muffled sound again. “Don’t worry, Rita, I’m coming for you.” Longshot whispered, even though it would have been wiser to be totally silent. He’d learned though that sometimes when he played the part really well, they’d give him or Rita or sometimes even both of them a little break. Sometimes he even got to spend a night with her watching movies and doing that mouth thing.

 

Longshot liked the mouth thing. _Kissing. That’s what it’s called._ He felt kind of dumb for not immediately knowing that but sometimes he forgot things that seemed obvious. Some days when he woke up, just about everything was a fog and it took time for him to remember Rita or the island, or the bad men up in control. Or Mojo, calling the shots and dreaming of going back to space to make mean TV shows with space people.

 

Longshot heard footsteps coming his way and quickly he ducked behind a conveniently placed corner in the wall. He quietly counted- _one, two, three,_ and then lunged at the man coming around the corridor, knocking him off his feet with a swift sweep kick and pouncing on him, using the blunt end of the knife to knock him out. Longshot didn’t like to kill people, even bad men and he only used his knives like that in the worst, most desperate situations.

 

Longshot continued on his way, where finally, he got to see Rita, who was strapped to some strange machine, which seemed to be putting something into her. He had to fight the urge to rip her out of it- what if it would kill her to do that? He went over to her, trying his best to reassure her.

 

“It’s okay, I’m going to figure this out and get you out of here and then we’re going to go away together.” And that will make a good episode, right? Maybe we’ll get a night to spend together before I go to bed and wake up and don’t remember anything? Deep down, he still wanted to run away with Rita to America, but he’d be happy enough to just have a quiet night without dogs or bad men with guns.

 

Longshot looked over at the controls and reached out to touch them tentatively, hoping that his abilities would give him some insight into how to actually use it- but instead of some strange scientist he didn’t know, he simply saw the Sugar Man standing over the machine, cackling, lashing that horrible, horrible inhuman tongue. Longshot _hated_ that tongue. He sometimes had nightmares about doing kissing with Rita only to have her end up having that gigantic razor-sharp tongue.

 

And then Longshot saw sweet, innocent Rita, from a city called New York in America and what was going to happen to her and he felt actual fear coil up in his stomach. _No. No. Not again._ He couldn’t let it happen again. He had to risk it. Longshot hurled one of his knives into the monitor of the machine that was holding Rita and used another knife to cut her out as quickly as possible.

 

It took some of his patented luck to avoid the blow, as a fist swung out at his face faster than Rita could ever hit someone, faster than just about _anyone_ could. Longshot ended up landing pretty hard on his butt, though as Rita shifted and changed before his eyes and Spiral awakened and four extra arms grew out of her torso and all of Longshot’s knives sailed out of his hands or bandoliers and found themselves in her hands. And then she began to dance.

 

“Rita … no … Rita, you’ve got to fight this. Please. Don’t do this.” Longshot was usually very brave because being scared didn’t actually help him any, but now he was scared. Very, very scared. He would rather fight all the dogs with a broken arm and leg than fight Spiral. The worst thing was that, usually, he fought for Rita and if Rita had become Spiral, than it was over. And without a reason or someone else to fight for and be brave for, he wouldn’t be lucky. And without luck- he didn’t have a chance.

 

“Rita? Rita isn’t _real._ I am Spiral, you moronic fool.” Spiral continued her dance and Longshot decided that he had to try, well, a long shot, and attack her before she finished whatever she was trying to do, because it assuredly wouldn’t be good. He just hoped he didn’t hurt her too badly, because he was pretty sure that Spiral was lying and Rita was in there somewhere.

 

He seemed to still have a little luck, because now it was Spiral’s turn to land on her butt, though she got up almost instantly and charged at him and, lucky or not, she had six knives right now and he had none. He also couldn’t teleport things like Spiral did, either herself or to bring things in from somewhere else. But at the same time, if there was a chance that Rita was still in there …

 

“Rita. Come on, I know you’re in there! Don’t let Spiral take over!” It seemed like good advice, but it didn’t seem to work, as Longshot found himself narrowly dodging several determined attacks. Spiral teleported behind him and Longshot had just enough time to propel himself away before she turned him into a blond, attractive pincushion. _I have to watch the ego, though. I get too full of myself, I also lose my luck._

 

Spiral for her part dropped the knives to the ground with a clatter as she teleported her own swords in, much longer and deadlier weapons that could cut right through his own knives if he wasn’t careful. The good news, he supposed, was that his own knives were back in play, but before he could go for them, they disappeared again. Longshot immediately moved away as quickly as he can before they dropped towards him from the ceiling. It was a close call though and a sudden pain in his arm confirmed that one had found its mark- at least slightly.

 

“Rita. Remember. You’re an American girl from New York.” Spiral lunged at him with her swords and he could barely keep her at bay. Even with luck, she was stronger and faster than him and had much bigger and many more sharp things at her disposal than he did. Also, he didn’t want to hurt her because Rita was in there somewhere. Spiral on the other hand, really, really wanted to kill him. Which was awfully unkind. It wasn’t as if he’d ever actually _done_ anything to Spiral. “We’re going to go away to America together. And drink Coca-Cola! Play baseball! And only listen to the people that we want to!”

 

“You talk too much. My swords thirst for your blood.” Spiral sneered and teleported herself in a flurry, striking at him too quickly for him to counter with reflexes alone- if he wasn’t lucky, he would have been a Longshot kabob several times over. He wanted to say something about that line being desperately corny and overly-villainy, but that would require staying still for more than a second or two and that simply wasn’t going to happen. He couldn’t help Rita if he was dead.

 

He couldn’t help anyone if he was dead.

 

Longshot finally managed to get himself far enough away from Spiral to speak again. “Rita! Come on! You’re better than this! Stronger! I know you can hear me! Fight!”

 

And Spiral paused for a moment and Longshot saw a look of confusion and pain register on her face, swords remaining at the ready, but not moving to strike him. _That’s my girl._ Really, he thought that in many ways, Rita was braver and tougher than he was. He had powers that helped him. She just had her courage and a little stunt-school training.

 

“That’s it. It’s me, Longshot! We need to get out of here.” It occurred to him that, maybe, just maybe, if Rita could take control again and she had Spiral’s powers, that they could just break out together. That he could finally be free.

 

And it was that selfish thought that probably doomed him. Spiral cackled out and blades lunged at him too fast to counter …

 

**SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT FROM MURDERWORLD STUDIOS**

 

If this is your first time watching, don’t worry!

 

**LONGSHOT WILL BE BACK FOR ANOTHER ADVENTURE! SAME LONGSHOT TIME! SAME LONGSHOT CHANNEL!**

 

Streaming episodes available on MWorld GO for 4.99 USD to watch or 12.99 USD for permanent download! The whole season available for download for 59.99 USD! Amazing price!

 

Live broadcast at 8 pm US Eastern time!

 

Like to read words like a total nerd? Check out KaiserKris’s fanfiction adaptation of this episode, available on Archive of our Own!

 

Read it soon, because our assass- er, copyright lawyers will be on his case lickety-split!

  
  
  



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